Day 4 Pray for Hashtags! (Or, why spending the eleven seconds typing that is less useful that an equivalent amount of work, even if you exclude the 4 seconds spent hunting for the # key)

There is currently a new 'Pray For' Hashtag going on in Twitter land.

I'm not going to go too much into the details behind it, because:
A) it's kinda personal, and I'm sure that the real people involved wouldn't want to one day stumble across a snarky little blog like this and think I'm making fun of them directly. I'm not that much of a dick, but I have to say:
B) it's one of the singularly dumbest accidents in all the history of dumb, stupid and ridiculous things to ever happen outside of a Tarantino Plot Contrivance (If certain reports are to be believed).
But don't worry, the megastar is unharmed. But the fact that he was involved has given this story it's heft. And so we have a new 'Pray For'

I remember first becoming aware of this trend with #PrayforKatrina, a well intentioned idea to get people to think about the victims of a hurricane and not, as the name implies, to join together in a mass worship of a destructive weather condition and declare it our blustery overlord.
(I'm pretty sure of this, my memory is slightly hazy of the details Or maybe that's the late stage of Caffeine withdrawal fugging up my brain bits)

Since then I've seen hundreds of these things. Some dealing with large disasters, some with small localised events that have been given traction by a little celebrity endorsement. Every time I think the same thing. 'Why Pray?'... Seriously. Why? Whatever the thing is that you want God to intervene against has already happened. It's done. The prayer is late. If you want a prayer to do that kind of work you need to be getting in on pre-emptive hashtag strikes. #PrayfornextWeeksMassiveDisasterAtTheXFactorStudio
Something like that

Ok. I'll admit it. It's easy to mock (Really, so Easy) because I'm an atheist, and so I don't believe prayer does anything for the recipient. Sure it might be fine for you, it might focus your mind and give you a moment of contemplation that allows you to internalise and rationalise a disaster, but prayer demonstrably has little effect, hence all the disasters that keep 'fucking shit up'. There's a lot of people praying out there, but this stuff keeps on happening.

Oh, and for the record. I don't buy that idea that God throws a screaming hissy fit over tolerance of homosexuals... Seriously, by your own doctrine he wiped out the entire planet, save one family, for 'wickedness'. If he really didn't like dudes with dudes (And it's nearly always dudes with dudes that inspire the gyp reaction in these idiots) He'd have found a way to just stop that cold. I mean, if he really did invent everything, he woulda left out that whole 'Prostate feels nice' bit...

Anyway. So I understand the argument that it can raise awareness of an issue. But more often than not I fear it's like a viral platitude. You Retweet, or add your own spin to the hashtag, then you move on. You've done your bit. It's as effective as saying 'Oh Dear' and then flipping channels.

How much better would #RaiseMoneyFor be? Any faith can get behind that, and even the hell bound heathen like me can join in. If you can afford to, you chip in, if not.. well the Retweet might actually put the issue in the sight of someone who can and so is actually useful.

There have been campaigns like this, and I applaud each and every one... but 'Pray For'?
I'm sorry, it just doesn't work for me.. and quite likely doesn't do anything for those it's intended to help...

Of course I might be wrong*. In which case I'll see you all in Hell.
Pray for Me.

(*I'm not wrong though.. oh and if ANY of the religions other than yours happen to be right.. You'll be in just as much hell as me... But don't worry, they aren't right either...)